Editing Rudyard Kipling (section)

====Nobel laureate and beyond====
{{see also|1907 Nobel Prize in Literature}}
In 1907, he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature, having been nominated in that year by [[Charles Oman]], professor at the [[University of Oxford]].<ref>[https://www.nobelprize.org/nomination/archive/show.php?id=2474 "Nomination Database".] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161222092542/http://www.nobelprize.org/nomination/archive/show.php?id=2474 |date=22 December 2016 }} ''Nobelprize.org''. Retrieved on 4 May 2017.</ref> The prize citation said it was "in consideration of the power of observation, originality of imagination, virility of ideas and remarkable talent for narration which characterize the creations of this world-famous author." Nobel prizes had been established in 1901 and Kipling was the first English-language recipient. At the award ceremony in [[Stockholm]] on 10 December 1907, the Permanent Secretary of the [[Swedish Academy]], [[Carl David af Wirsén]], praised both Kipling and three centuries of [[English literature]]:

<blockquote>The Swedish Academy, in awarding the Nobel Prize in Literature this year to Rudyard Kipling, desires to pay a tribute of homage to the literature of England, so rich in manifold glories, and to the greatest genius in the realm of narrative that that country has produced in our times.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/1907/press.html |title=Nobel Prize in Literature 1907 – presentation Speech |publisher=Nobelprize.org |access-date=28 September 2006 |archive-date=31 January 2010 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100131132108/http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/1907/press.html |url-status=live }}</ref></blockquote>

To "book-end" this achievement came the publication of two connected poetry and story collections: ''[[Puck of Pook's Hill]]'' (1906), and ''[[Rewards and Fairies]]'' (1910). The latter contained the poem "[[If—]]". In a 1995 [[BBC]] opinion poll, it was voted the UK's favourite poem.<ref name="Jones">{{cite book |author=Jones, Emma |title=The Literary Companion |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=WELwa9Sds-EC&pg=PA25 |year=2004 |publisher=Robson |isbn=978-1-86105-798-3 |page=25}}</ref> This exhortation to self-control and stoicism is arguably Kipling's most famous poem.<ref name="Jones" />

Such was Kipling's popularity that he was asked by his friend [[Max Aitken, Lord Beaverbrook|Max Aitken]] to intervene in the [[1911 Canadian federal election|1911 Canadian election]] on behalf of the Conservatives.<ref name="MacKenzie, David page 211">MacKenzie, David & Dutil, Patrice (2011). ''Canada 1911: The Decisive Election that Shaped the Country''. Toronto: Dundurn, p. 211. {{ISBN|1554889472}}.</ref> In 1911, the major issue in Canada was a [[Reciprocity (Canadian politics)|reciprocity]] treaty with the United States signed by the Liberal Prime Minister Sir [[Wilfrid Laurier]] and vigorously opposed by the Conservatives under Sir [[Robert Borden]]. On 7 September 1911, the [[Montreal Star|''Montreal Daily Star'']] newspaper published a front-page appeal against the agreement by Kipling, who wrote: "It is her own soul that Canada risks today. Once that soul is pawned for any consideration, Canada must inevitably conform to the commercial, legal, financial, social, and ethical standards which will be imposed on her by the sheer admitted weight of the United States."<ref name="MacKenzie, David page 211" /> At the time, the ''Montreal Daily Star'' was Canada's most read newspaper. Over the next week, Kipling's appeal was reprinted in every English newspaper in Canada and is credited with helping to turn Canadian public opinion against the Liberal government.<ref name="MacKenzie, David page 211" />

Kipling sympathised with the anti-[[Government of Ireland Act 1914|Home Rule]] stance of [[Irish Unionists]], who opposed Irish autonomy. He was friends with [[Edward Carson]], the Dublin-born leader of [[Ulster Unionism]], who raised the [[Ulster Volunteers]] to prevent Home Rule in Ireland. Kipling wrote in a letter to a friend that Ireland was not a nation, and that before the English arrived in 1169, the Irish were a gang of cattle thieves living in savagery and killing each other while "writing dreary poems" about it all. In his view it was only British rule that allowed Ireland to advance.<ref>[[#Gilmour|Gilmour]], p. 242.</ref> A visit to Ireland in 1911 confirmed Kipling's prejudices. He wrote that the Irish countryside was beautiful, but spoiled by what he called the ugly homes of Irish farmers, with Kipling adding that God had made the Irish into poets having "deprived them of love of line or knowledge of colour."<ref name="auto5">[[#Gilmour|Gilmour]], p. 243.</ref> In contrast, Kipling had nothing but praise for the "decent folk" of the Protestant minority and Unionist Ulster, free from the threat of "constant mob violence".<ref name="auto5"/>

Kipling wrote the poem "''Ulster''" in 1912, reflecting his Unionist politics. Kipling often referred to the Irish Unionists as "our party".<ref>[[#Gilmour|Gilmour]], p. 241.</ref> Kipling had no sympathy or understanding for [[Irish nationalism]], seeing Home Rule as an act of treason by the government of the Liberal Prime Minister [[H. H. Asquith]] that would plunge Ireland into the Dark Ages and allow the Irish Catholic majority to oppress the Protestant minority.<ref>[[#Gilmour|Gilmour]], pp. 242–244.</ref> The scholar [[Sir David Gilmour, 4th Baronet|David Gilmour]] wrote that Kipling's lack of understanding of Ireland could be seen in his attack on [[John Redmond]] – the Anglophile leader of the [[Irish Parliamentary Party]] who wanted Home Rule because he believed it was the best way of keeping the United Kingdom together – as a traitor working to break up the United Kingdom.<ref name="auto4">[[#Gilmour|Gilmour]], p. 244.</ref> ''Ulster'' was first publicly read at an Unionist rally in Belfast, where the largest Union Jack ever made was unfolded.<ref name="auto4"/> Kipling admitted it was meant to strike a "hard blow" against the Asquith government's Home Rule bill: "Rebellion, rapine, hate, Oppression, wrong and greed, Are loosed to rule our fate, By England's act and deed."<ref name="auto5"/> ''Ulster'' generated much controversy with the Conservative MP Sir [[Mark Sykes]] – who as a Unionist was opposed to the Home Rule bill – condemning ''Ulster'' in ''[[The Morning Post]]'' as a "direct appeal to ignorance and a deliberate attempt to foster religious hate."<ref name="auto4"/>

Kipling was a staunch opponent of [[Bolshevism]], a position which he shared with his friend [[Henry Rider Haggard]].<ref>{{Cite web |date=1920-03-06 |title=The Times of Wednesday publishes a letter signed by Sir... |url=https://archive.spectator.co.uk/article/6th-march-1920/2/the-times-of-wednesday-publishes-a-letter-signed-b |access-date=2025-01-02 |website=The Spectator Archive}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last1=Kipling |first1=Rudyard |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=BGhdPAAACAAJ |title=Rudyard Kipling to Rider Haggard: The Record of a Friendship |last2=Haggard |first2=Henry Rider |date=1965 |publisher=Fairleigh Dickinson University Press |isbn=978-0-8386-6881-8 |editor-last=Cohen |editor-first=Morton |pages=110–113 |language=en}}</ref> The two had bonded on Kipling's arrival in London in 1889, largely on the strength of their shared opinions, and remained lifelong friends.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Leibfried |first=Philip |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=xP5aAAAAMAAJ&q=RUDYARD%20KIPLING%20AND%20SIR%20HENRY%20RIDER%20HAGGARD%20ON%20SCREEN |title=Rudyard Kipling and Sir Henry Rider Haggard on Screen, Stage, Radio, and Television |date=2000 |publisher=McFarland |isbn=978-0-7864-0707-1 |pages= |language=en |chapter=Introduction}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last1=Kipling |first1=Rudyard |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=BGhdPAAACAAJ |title=Rudyard Kipling to Rider Haggard: The Record of a Friendship |last2=Haggard |first2=Henry Rider |date=1965 |publisher=Fairleigh Dickinson University Press |isbn=978-0-8386-6881-8 |editor-last=Cohen |editor-first=Morton |language=en |chapter=Introduction}}</ref>